It’s ok to be ghoulish and dance on the graves of the unvaccinated. Thus sayeth Michael Hiltzick of the LA Times.

Mocking anti-vaxxers’ COVID deaths is ghoulish, yes — but may be necessary

Yes, that’s the headline. The column is even worse. 

It may be not a little ghoulish to celebrate or exult in the deaths of vaccine opponents. And it may be proper to express sympathy and solicitude to those they leave behind.

But mockery is not necessarily the wrong reaction to those who publicly mocked anti-COVID measures and encouraged others to follow suit, before they perished of the disease the dangers of which they belittled.

Nor is it wrong to deny them our sympathy and solicitude, or to make sure it’s known when their deaths are marked that they had stood fast against measures that might have protected themselves and others from the fate they succumbed to.

There may be no other way to make sure that the lessons of these teachable moments are heard.

That’s how Hiltzick ended his column. This after essentially shaming Kelly Ernby, who died from complications of Covid, for her stance against mandates and most recently for her stance against vaccine mandates.  

Ernby was staunchly opposed to vaccine mandates even before the pandemic. In late 2019, she spoke publicly against a new California law tightening immunization rules for California schoolchildren.

“I don’t think that the government should be involved in mandating what vaccines people are taking,” she said at an online town hall. “I think that’s a decision between doctors and their patients … If the government is going to mandate vaccines, what else are they going to mandate?”

Given all the mandates that Governor Hair Gel Newsom has rolled out since March 2020, Kelly Ernby was very prescient. 

Meanwhile Hiltzik firmly believes that yes, it is absolutely ok, right, and very necessary to shame those who A. refuse to get vaccinated and B. abhor the vaccine mandates. I bet if you asked and he answered honestly, he doesn’t believe there should be medical or religious exemptions. 

We have been told to live in fear for two years now. The mixed messages regarding Covid, virus transmission, the vaccines, boosters, quarantines, and more continue to pile up. Two weeks to stop the spread they told us. Now it’s masks forever, remote learning that leaves every child behind, and get vaxxed or get fired. Not only that but we have a barely functioning President telling the world that the situation we are currently in is due to the “pandemic of the unvaccinated.” 

Evidently Michael Hiltzik, among others, took Biden’s comments to heart and is using his platform to tell us it’s damn good thing to shame those anti-vaxxers and anti-mandate people and dance on their graves.  

Also, there’s another big problem with this LA Slimes article. The stealth editing!

The reason that, in the opening paragraph, I pointed out the “current” title of Hitzik’s column is that it has changed at least twice since the original submission. At the time of this writing, the title suggests that mocking anti-vaxxers “may be necessary.” The original column that I saved last simply read, “- but necessary.” You can see that version in the author’s tweet inserted above. That one wasn’t even the worst of the lot, however. If you look at the embedded URL you can see the original title, which read, “Why shouldn’t we dance on the graves of anti-vaxxers?”

Needless to say, this makes both Hiltzik and the LA Times look even more ghoulish. Furthermore, it’s nauseating and, dare I say, evil, for someone to use his column to advocate for such shaming. Then again, he’s continuing a trend that started in April 2020. How many people have been caught on video screaming at others for not wearing a mask correctly if at all. How many members of the media have used their show as a bully pulpit against those who dislike mandates and other rules that don’t make sense? Too many. Yet it’s obvious that people such as Michael Hiltzik enjoy, even celebrate being such ghouls.  

And here I thought we'd learned after the HIV/AIDS crisis that it's never acceptable to mock people for dying from a virus, even if we disagree with some of their choices. It's not an effective strategy, & it's heartless.

History will not look kindly on these people. pic.twitter.com/EMTMS2rIEx

— Billy Binion (@billybinion) January 10, 2022

Now, keeping in mind Hiltzik’s ghoulish shaming screed, one would suppose that he would’ve called out folks like Joy Reid for her prior anti-vax stance….right?

Never let the original anti-vaxxers get away with predending they weren't. https://t.co/HAhE7syVMf

— RBe (@RBPundit) December 28, 2021

I bet you he didn’t utter one peep against her because Democrat left narrative trumps all!

Here’s the thing regarding Michael Hiltzik’s ghoulish grave dancing. He’s showing the world his ugly. He’s showing the world that he has no shame. 

It’s terrific that we have a 1st Amendment in this country. It’s one that allows Michael Hiltzik to write screeds begging people to dance on the graves of those who die from Covid and weren’t vaccinated. It also allows us to call him out for the ugly person he is. 

Feature Photo Credit: vaccine shot virus by Geralt via Pixabay, cropped and modified